Both protest against it with every particle of
their energy. Why Christianity failed to protest against it in fifteen
hundred years may or may not be obscure; but there is no obscurity
whatever about the probable effect on militarism and war of a
cultivation of reason and sympathy.[3]
Many a reform has been actually retarded by the use of rhetoric. An
outpour of vehement language seems to release, both in the speaker and
in the assenting audience, a part of that energy which ought to issue in
action. It has been one of the grave blunders of the Churches that they
thought their function ended with the eloquent announcement that men
were brothers. We must be more practical. Now, while the imagination of
the world is filled with the horrors of war, and sympathy is ready to
fire us with a mighty energy, is one of the great opportunities of
peace. One may trust that, after this experience, the Churches will
awaken to the implications of their moral doctrine and set to work to
impress it emphatically and repeatedly, as a moral duty, on their
followers. It is, however, not impossible that, with all their
scoutmasters and chaplains and services of thanksgiving for victory, a
very large part of the clergy will find themselves so closely allied
with militarism when the war is over, so confused in their appreciation
of what it has done for us, that they will continue to mumble only
general principles and halting counsels.
Pages:
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172